


damsel and dragons

by rainysatan



Series: phoenix hatching [1]
Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Appearance-Altering Injury, Depression, Different Beginnings, F/F, Female Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, Friendship, Hiccup fights dragons, Major Character Injury, No Sexual Content in this one because they're BABIES!, POV First Person, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 10:07:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29258688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainysatan/pseuds/rainysatan
Summary: Hiccup doesn't go out that night. The consequences of such a simple decision are far-reaching, but mayhap a different path leads to the same destination.Now, if only she would stop bashing dragons on the head.
Relationships: Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III & Toothless, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III/Astrid Hofferson
Series: phoenix hatching [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2148585
Comments: 9
Kudos: 25





	1. a rose among thorns

**Author's Note:**

> I really love How to Train Your Dragon. I really love romance. I really love to read. 
> 
> But I'm gay. See the issue here? 
> 
> Since there's hardly any stories with a female Hiccup in a relationship with a female Astrid, this is my solution. Because I love Astrid and I crushed on her as a wee teen. I can't with certainty promise a story that will knock your socks off—leave that to Gobber's trolls—but I hope to at least deliver an interesting read. This is written for my own personal enjoyment and to practice writing, and in the hopes that others who searched like me can find a story that at least takes the edge off that craving for f/f stories in this fandom. 
> 
> If Hiccup being a girl and a lesbian one at that bugs you, just click back. No one has to know. ;)
> 
> For those who're ready to scroll down, read on! If you've any ideas on what you want to see by the end of this chapter, or feel that they're wildly out-of-character even for the circumstances at any point in this story, please just leave a comment or pm me! I only wish to improve.

Embers float like fireflies.

The night is rippling with undulating serpents, the sky a sea for monsters to swim in. The village of Berk is in a frenzy to starve the flames and dowse them, but the dragons swarming above the village always relight them—most Vikings wrestle with the fires while fewer are left to guard the livestock. Amidst the roar of both Vikings and dragons, sheep bay pitifully within the talons of Deadly Nadders, Gronkles, and the Hideous Zipplebacks. The few Monstrous Nightmares focus on distracting the Vikings that actually pose a threat and the Terrible Terrors, as always, remain a general nuisance.

While the rest of the village takes up arms, I’m the one who ensures every hand wields a weapon. Sweat lines my furrowed brow; the clattering of the anvil, the sweltering waves of heat from the forge, and the hiss of hot steel doused in water typically provides me comfort, but never the times I’m forced to the sidelines. _You’re too young, Hiccup—you’re too small, too scrawny, too soft, too un-Viking-like—_

What kind of Viking can barely lift a sword? An axe?

A _shield?_

Someone who isn’t really a Viking, that’s who.

 _I just need to kill a dragon,_ I remind myself. _Then they’ll see me as one of them. You don’t_ really _need to be strong to kill one, just smart and quick enough to get away with it. They’ll see._

In my peripherals I catch Vikings being burned alive and dragons skewered in a bloody display that never fails to turn my stomach. I force myself to keep watching, knowing that one day I would be in the midst of that regardless of what everyone else thinks.

After all, how could I ever bother to call myself the Chief if I couldn’t be out there with my people?

_But the people don’t want me. . ._

I scowl determinedly to myself then, throwing my braid over my shoulder as I press the blade of an axe head harder to the grindstone. Gobber’s pegleg taps the flooring as he replaces the handles of weapons that’ve splintered beyond repair or snapped clean in half. Contrasting the riotous atmosphere outside, the atmosphere within the forge is uncomfortably calm, if you take away the hollering between Gobber and whichever Viking unfortunate enough to be unarmed.

“You good there, lass? Think you’ve worn the metal down to a wire.”

I startle at Gobber’s hand bearing down on my shoulder. For a large man like him downed two appendages, he can be surprisingly stealthy—or, that’s what I like to think to excuse my frequent inattentiveness. I grimace as I realize the truth of his words, pulling back the metal I was working on to see it considerably thinner but still no less durable. _If anything,_ I think, twisting it over in my hands, _it should prove to be much faster while cutting much cleaner._

But what did it matter what I thought? Vikings tend to like things messy.

“Sorry, lost my head there,” I reply, setting the axe head to the side where more of them lay waiting to be refitted and sent out for further bloodletting. Whoever receives that is sure to complain at its daintiness.

Gobber’s forehead wrinkles. “What’s the matter?”

I shrug, pulling another tool for killing towards me to be re-sharpened. “Nothing.”

“Hiccup. . .”

“Gobber.”

I feel his presence over my shoulder, his stare developing into an itch I can’t ignore. I huff, turning to look at my mentor before inclining my head to the counter. The doors are open and giving me a clear visual to the bloodshed and the multiple unwarranted arsons going on beyond the shop. “I want to be out there. That’s what’s wrong.”

We both turn our gazes outside. I catch my peers putting out fires with buckets of well water, something I’m not even allowed to participate in since I struggle with the buckets. Snotlout is soaked worse than I am, and I can’t tell if it’s from him actually working up a sweat or just from him dumping a bucket of water on himself after his pants caught fire. No doubt he’ll exaggerate the tale in the morning of how he lost his bottoms. Fishlegs is slow but efficient, dumping the water at the base of the flames while the twins compete over who can put out the most.

And Astrid. . .

My attention lasts the longest on Astrid, who walks with such purpose that I think even mountains would move out of her way. She’s a force of nature all on her own, fighting the fires like a flood. Her blonde hair turns to gold from the flames abounding her as she labors away. Each sight of her always steals my breath away. I often feel as though she’s a witch in disguise with how spellbound I am when seeing her, but also for how each glimpse of her eventually leads to a sour feeling in my gut.

She should be the future heiress of Berk, not me. I try my hardest to live up to people’s expectations yet I’m definitely sure my best effort can’t measure up to what she does so effortlessly.

Gobber’s face has fallen when I manage to avert my eyes, a sigh building in his shoulders as they rise and then fall. “Lass, y’know you—”

“—can’t.” I interrupt bitterly. He winces. “Gobber, I know. He doesn’t want me out there. None of you think I have the guts or the brawn, but I know I have the brains! Why can’t that be enough? I just. . . I want to be one of you guys. How am I supposed to take up the mantle of Chief one day if no one in Berk thinks I can stand with them?”

A roar shatters the air, more a shriek than anything. The earth trembles from the force of the blast as screams of “ _Night Fury!_ ” echo. The hammers rattle on the wooden counters, deadly morning stars without shafts rolling off the shelves; Gobber kicks one away with his pegleg.

We both fall into a muted silence as the devil of the night sounds out its arrival.

I finally turn away when the cries of wounded fill the air, gritting my teeth. “I know I can help,” I insist, thinking of the bola launcher hidden under the sheet in the corner. “Why won’t you let me?”

“Hiccup,” Gobber starts, before petering off with another sigh. He begins again, “Hiccup, for all yer brains, you just don’t seem to understand that it’s not enough. No matter how many schemes you come up with, strange contraptions, it won’t matter one wit if you get cornered when you don’t have the strength to defend yerself!”

His single remaining hand rubs down his face, as it often does when he finds himself in my company. I immediately feel guilty for the exhaustion I’ve brought onto him. I can tell the blond in his braid grows grayer with every day he deals with me. I’m grateful he loves me enough to accept the burden of teaching a failure.

If only the Chief could, though.

Eventually, Gobber’s weary eyes find mine. “. . . I don’t want to be harsh, lass, but each time you’ve gone out there it’s only resulted in more loss because someone has to save you. You’re just not cut out for it, like this. You want to be a Viking? You’ll have to stop being the opposite.”

That hits me in a tender spot. I turn away, hunching my shoulders and fighting back the abrupt glistening in my eyes. The shame burns me more than working with the forge ever has.

_But it’s true._

Countless times I’ve run out, brazen and so sure that my plans would work this time, that I could make my dad proud of me and get the others to stop belittling me.

Each time I’ve failed.

In the ensuing chase where an enraged dragon races to snap me up or cook me alive, other Vikings or even the Chief have had to come to my aid, often abandoning very important tasks and posts during the raids. There was even that time the distillery burned down due to my screw ups, along with all the spirits inside.

Now, everyone knows drunk Vikings are happy Vikings.

The opposite? Not so happy.

Especially with me.

But they never are. They can’t wrap their heads or their hands around the weapons I create, the odd way in which one thing does another, then another, the scope of it too confounding for them to even consider wielding them. They want to be out there in the fray, bringing the weapons down on scaly heads with single-minded simplicity, not from afar, beyond the reach of dragon tails and jaws and claws. A Viking doesn’t shy away from the brunt of battle.

But I do.

Because I’m not a Viking.

“. . . Lass—"

“Gobber! Thor Almighty, get yer one-legged ox-face self out here!”

I glance at Gobber as he harrumphs, wrinkling his mouth at the frankly rude call for his aid. He gives me a single look that I’ve learned comes to mean “ _stay put_ ” before yanking a heavy spiked club off the wall. “We’ll talk later, Hiccup. Keep the forge burning.”

I stare after him as he hobbles out the doorway, frowning. I pull the sword I’m now working on off the grindstone and see my sullen reflection in its dull sheen. All I can see in the metal is a little girl not fit to bear the title of Chief, now or ever. All I see is a little girl who doesn’t belong anywhere but out of sight. My only friends are Gobber and the forge, with all the odd devices I’ve made and my little workspace shoved into the corner and hidden away by a curtain.

But as I spot the painstakingly put-together bola cannon I crafted pressed against the wall, I have to wonder.

Should I finally put away my oddities? My only hope of keeping up with those superior to me in every other way? Give up achieving the one thing I’ve always wanted, to make it easier for everyone else to ignore my existence, if not scorn it?

I feel on the edge of something—something life-altering as I stare at the proof of my strangeness. Letting it go would be like losing a piece of me.

Would I really surrender a part of who I am just to try and fit in?

I think of the Chief, who so often has criticism and very little support, struggling to be a father with an embarrassment of a daughter. I think of Gobber, who offered to teach me his trade in order to provide me some kind of purpose, a way to distract me from the fact that I fail to connect with my peers in every avenue I’ve attempted until I learned to just take a step back instead of forward. I think of Berk, the village I am to inherit, whether I feel I’m fit for it or not.

“ _A good chief puts his people first._ ”

A saying, one of the few things the Chieftain tried to teach me that actually stuck, right before he put me on the back burner to focus on Berk. I was too odd for him to handle, too small and fragile for him to risk training, and too awkward for him to speak to outside of official matters—it was just easier to put me aside as a lost cause and focus on what he knew best.

The metal plip-plops with my tears.

_Fine. Okay. I’ll do it your way._

I put the sword to the grindstone and my heart away.

Not even ten seconds later I hear a whistle.

The cry of the Night Fury whips the air like a clap of thunder and—

The forge explodes.

* * *

Gothi wrote to the Chief that I was lucky.

Feeling for my eye, I rub instead the bandages that hide it. I know I shouldn’t but it’s a ferocious type of pain that can’t be ignored. I don’t have a voice to protest the agony. I think I’m in shock, and that’s what’s staying my tongue. I can’t bear to look in mirrors yet.

I’m told the flames of the Night Fury had seared away my eyelid until there was no seam to be seen, no eye beneath save for the melted mess it surely became. There’re smatterings of burns across my cheek and jaw like clotted splotches of paint. I can feel the sticky salve beneath the bandages, some futile attempt at minimizing the scarring and easing the burns.

What’s the point when nobody cares to look at me anyways?

The same burns travel down the side of my neck to my shoulder blade. Infrequently there are streaks down my arm that I can feel pulling when I rub at my face.

To sum it up, I probably look both poorly cooked and overly burned.

“Hiccup. . .”

I hear the Chieftain say my name but I don’t bother to look up. I can’t bear to see the disappointment that surely blankets his face like a funeral shroud. I can hardly hold back my own—even when I do what he wants, I still manage to screw up. How do I still get in trouble by staying put like I'm meant to? 

My throat closes up. A terrible, burning feeling that has nothing to do with the wounds I received from the Night Fury twists at my heart. My fingers pick at the blanket though the arm that’s sticky with the ointment has trouble. Self-loathing claws at my insides until I want to rip open my own ribcage just to save it the trouble of tearing me up inside.

Can I _never_ do anything right?

I can’t even die properly.

The bed creaks threateningly as the Chieftain’s weight falls upon it. He sits next to me, his shadow dwarfing mine in the flickering candlelight.

Slowly, he reaches out.

When my father grabs my hand, I bawl from the only eye I have left.

“I’m sorry,” I cry. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I don’t know why this—I don’t know _how_ —”

There’s my voice, hoarse and cracking. I flinch when my head is gently pulled forward. My forehead presses against his stocky chest, his draping beard getting soaked with my tears. “Shh, Hiccup,” I hear him say, and his voice is thick and wet, “It’s not your fault baby girl. I’m so sorry.”

“Dad. . . I’m sorry. . .”

“It’s okay, it’s going to be okay.”

I twist my head so my unburnt cheek is pressed against him, disbelieving his words. My sole eye stares out the window. A shadow moves away from the glass to blend in with the rest of this tragic night but I don't care to pay attention to it. 

I don't care at all anymore.

* * *

I’m clumsier now. I bump into things that I’ve known for years were always there, trip over roots and steps that I once knew to approach carefully. No one laughs at me—yet. I don’t know what faces they make at me and I don’t look up from my feet to find out. Life was miserable before. It's nigh unlivable now.

But I’ll adapt. One day.

Maybe.

Dad tries to say I will, but I know better.

The other kids look at me like—like—I don’t know. Something they’d rather not look at. Snotlout hasn’t said a word to me in the past week, nor has he made any effort to make my life harder, but I think at this point it’s already reached max difficulty. Fishlegs is the only one that’s never looked at me like scum on the bottom of his shoe but now he can’t seem to meet me in the eyes even if we’re two feet apart. The twins? They haven’t caused a catastrophe from some hair-brained idea since, and no ill-natured joke’s been played on me in the same amount of time.

And forget Astrid; I duck out of sight at the slightest hint of her presence. I don’t ever want her to see me like this. Call me stupid but even trauma hasn’t gotten rid of my desire to look good in front of my crush.

Even if I’ll never look good for the rest of my life. _Sigh._

Scorn and pity are without end, on every tongue and in every fleeting glance. I was used to the seething looks before but adding sympathy into the equation just hurt in a different way. I don’t want people to feel bad for me. I don’t want them to think that now, even if I tried, I could never amount to anything.

I hide my face. Part of my hair is now, always, left out of my braids, drawing over the place devoid of an eye. The Chief goes to a tailor and has a vest with a hood made for me, for the sole purpose of hiding what my hair can’t.

He tries to say I don’t have to hide. In reply, my single eye stares blankly at him, opposite of the raw, still yet healed burns, long enough that he averts his eyes in discomfort. That’s how I get him to concede.

If my own father can’t stand to look at me for too long then how can I subject others to the sight of me?

Gobber’s shop is remade in record time, though far sturdier than before. The stairs don’t sag anymore from even my weight and it’s not as open as before. A crucial part of Viking lives, getting our blacksmith back to work in a suitable building is too important to wait. This past raid has devastated Berk in morale more than any other because the Chief has yet to leave on another hunt, waiting for me to fully recover.

Still, from what I can tell, most of the warriors are secretly relieved for the reprieve.

The Chieftain worries for me returning to work. I tell him there’s nothing else for me to do, no other person besides Gobber who can stand to be around me when I now look like the leper people treat me as. No manner of reassurance changes my decision. He lets me go with only the promise to be cautious.

In contrast, Gobber welcomes me back easily enough, though even he has issues with hiding his feelings. He watches me when he thinks I can’t see him, treats me more gingerly. Each time he tries to bring up our conversation from before. I know it’s from misplaced guilt at not being there. Each time I switch the topic but this last time I told him—

“You were right, Gobber. I’m just not meant for it. I never will be, now.”

He drops it for good after that.

From then on, I’m either at the shop, at Gothi’s for pain management, or in my own home. I don’t take my time traipsing through Berk, I don’t greet anyone I pass, and I avoid the popular roads. I’ve essentially become a ghost in my own village. It suits me just fine—is what I’d like to say, but if before I had minimal contact with people, now it’s down to zero.

It’s . . . lonely. I don’t know how hermits do it. 

In order to ignore the sad state my life has been reduced to, I sleep more than I stay awake. It's easier to ignore the pain and hunger that way, too. Food is hard to down, even if that might be because of how the burns pull when I open my mouth. Even if it didn't, I lose my appetite at the sight of charred meat. Let it be known that Stoick isn't the best cook, too busy protecting our food source to learn how to properly prepare meals from it.

My days pass by both sluggishly and in a blink, and another raid happens a fortnight later.

I know it starts when I hear thunder without lightning.

I can’t stop the reflexive flinch. Before the loss of my eye, I could hear the telltale screech of the Night Fury anytime without feeling as though I’d be the target of its next attack. Now? Gobber’s features are etched in worry as I tremble, struggling to untangle bolas for use in the defense of Berk.

“Lass. . .”

“I’m fine.”

Just like that, I ignore him. I rearm Vikings who focus on their repaired or replacement weapons rather than me and studiously pretend I don’t hear the devils outside.

But then the forge implodes when a stray Viking draws both the ire of a Monstrous Nightmare and Deadly Nadder right in front of the shop. Gobber leaps through the hole, hook catching on the horn of the Monstrous Nightmare before its head can pass through the opening the Deadly Nadder blasted into the front of the forge. It’s a battle, then, to bash the Monstrous Nightmare’s jaws shut before it can spew its flames.

The Viking that brought them to us struggles with the Deadly Nadder. At the end of the short scuffle, its tail swings and splinters of spines tear into him, sending him both sailing and screaming when the tail impacts with him afterwards. Gobber redirects his attention to the Deadly Nadder once he’s bludgeoned the Monstruous Nightmare to the floor, blood streaming betwixt its horns and eyes shut.

I’m again left to fend for myself as he screams after the Deadly Nadder.

I’m left alone. I hear the Night Fury scream and I brace myself, but my surroundings don’t burst into flames again.

Instead, I hear a ragged hiss. I watch fearfully as the Monstrous Nightmare rouses, not quite as dead as Gobber had thought. I press myself against the shelf with the pile of bolas I’ve been struggling to detangle when it blazes into an inferno. The dragon gets to its feet, scaly lids peeling open and serpentine pupils going razor thin at the sight of me. The fire it bears sends waves of oppressive heat towards me and I can’t help but tremble in remembered agony.

Each and every burn on my body feels like a fresh brand, and I clutch the place where an eye used to be as I use the other to watch death approach.

“Of course, it’s just my luck,” I can’t help but choke out as it prowls closer. “surviving a Night Fury but getting roasted again right after.”

The Monstrous Nightmare opens its jaws—

A whistle—

I see the white-blue-black of the fire that ruined my life, the deafening boom of it leaving my ears ringing as Gobber’s forge explodes again. Surprisingly, the only damage I sustain is from the splinters of wood and the bruises that surely bloom on my back when it slams into the shelf. The Monstrous Nightmare is blown clear off its talons, sent rolling to the side and out of the smoldering skeleton that used to be Gobber’s shop.

Again I’m reduced to wide-eyed staring as a shadow swoops down amidst the cries of “Night Fury!” and my father roaring my name desperately. The flames flicker, making the dark dragon nothing but a feline silhouette as it snarls at the Monstrous Nightmare struggling to get up until the fire hazard of a dragon extinguishes itself with a squeak.

There’s a silent conversation between the two monsters.

Finally, the shadow turns to me. I can’t make out anything but the paleness of its eyes, a green catlike gaze that darts to my face when I freeze.

Predator and prey. Monster and victim. Fear and—

There is a moment, then, where my green meets the green of this dragon’s, and its pupils blow up as its stare drifts to the side, to the glaring blindspot in my vision that its shadow blends in with like it belongs there. A soft sound emits from the creature shrouded by night before it shakes its head and snarls at the dragon that took its blast. With a powerful roar, the shadow takes off.

I’m at a loss for words.

_Did I just see . . . the Night Fury? Did it just. . .?_

No. No way did it save me, not after destroying my life. I refuse to even entertain the idea; the Monstrous Nightmare was just in the way. I don’t even register on the Night Fury’s radar as a threat, obviously, or it wouldn’t have left me alive.

It hits me then that its attacked the forge twice now, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence.

_. . . It’s attacking the forge, not me. It’s smarter than it looks and must be trying to prevent us from defending ourselves. . ._

_And it probably didn’t even realize or care that I was in it._

But the realization only makes my heart go cold and my blood boil.

Before the Vikings can congregate to rescue me, the Nightmare finally clambers back up and hisses at me. It makes no obvious moves to renew its aggression towards me but, feeling spiteful and refusing to give it the chance, I grab at the heavy bolas behind me, nabbing one that I thankfully managed to untangle.

The Monstrous Nightmare starts, but if there’s one good thing about me it’s that I’m quick; it has no time to react before I hurl the mess at its head with a strength I typically don’t possess. The bolas smack it dead in the head where its skull had taken the brunt of Gobber’s bashing. By some stroke of luck, the Monstrous Nightmare stumbles back, dazed, rope hanging off its horn.

I grab something else—a hefty hammer half as heavy as I am—which isn’t much, unless you’re me. The fire in me only burns hotter with no end in sight, fueled by the misery of my circumstances. I can’t tell if it’s because the Night Fury hurt me so irreparably, or because it dared to leave me alive a second time.

Buoyed by rage and adrenaline, I’m struck by sudden, uncontrollable recklessness. I dare to scream at the wounded dragon that totters about, bereft of its bearings, “What the Hel are you hissing at, you scaly candle wannabe?! You want a piece of me?! Then come get it! You don’t scare me!”

And then I toss the hammer.

The Monstrous Nightmare goes down.

Behind it is my father and a whole entourage of Vikings, all of them gaping at me.

I glare venomously at them all over the still form of the beast, daring them to call me useless now. None of them know what to think, looking up and then down between me, a twig, and the Nightmare, a beast even the strongest of Vikings have to approach carefully. "What are you looking at?"

Of course, no one answers me.

I’m still angry and my head feels floaty with the weightlessness of it as I tremble. The burns along my body feel raw and hot with the heat flooding my veins.

My eyes fall to the dragon I defeated—even if Gobber did most of the work, I dealt the final blow. _Me_. I did.

“You don’t scare me,” I say again over the Monstrous Nightmare. I’m not sure to who, or what, I’m speaking to anymore. “You _can’t_ scare me anymore.”

It's an epiphany. It's a fact. It's like learning the sky is blue, or that pain hurts. It's me, realizing that I can hurt whatever hurts me back.

The Chieftain comes closer.

“Hiccup? Did you just. . .?”

The world stops making sense. The next few minutes—or maybe it’s an hour—passes in a daze. It’s like my mind is so busy and full of thoughts I can’t actually think at all, too overwhelmed to address any of them. I’m swallowed by a crowd. I hear praise, I see amazement, but I don’t register any of it.

None of it seems real. It can’t be real. No one's ever cheered my name before.

Gobber drags the Monstrous Nightmare off as the Chief finally takes me under his arm, raising mine by the wrist, exalting me. Before I can think to protest, he’s hollering into the crowd.

“My girl did it! She fought a dragon! Can you believe it?”

“No!” is shouted back, but grins don the faces of every Viking before me.

“I think, with this, she deserves to go into dragon training, don’t you all agree?!”

And, unbelievably, they yell—

“Yes!”

“What do you think of that, Hiccup?”

I freeze as heads turn to me, first the Chief and then the rest. A chill crawls down me. Suddenly all that anger inside of me from the Night Fury flees, the adrenaline ebbing. Whatever confidence I had in the face of that Nightmare is suddenly absent when faced with the opposite of disdain from people I’ve grown used to belittling me.

I nervously pat at my bangs to make sure they’re covering my burns.

A hush falls over Berk, as though they’re just now realizing should’ve ask my opinion before all of the fanfare, considering everything that’s happened to me involving dragons.

The Chief leans down. “Hiccup, do you want to?” he asks lowly, but his voice might as well be the echo of Thor’s hammer across the plane of the sky with how quiet the rest of the world is.

Everyone’s eyes are on me and this time it isn’t because I screwed up.

_Do I want to?_

I finally process everything. Without the rush that comes from fearing for my life, I’m left with the hollowness that’s carved a space within me these past couple of weeks. For the first time, I . . . can’t stand it. Can’t stand the onset of nervousness and fear that used to be my norm. Despise the hesitation staying my mind and tongue. I ache to feel something other than this emptiness.

I stare after where Gobber had taken the Monstrous Nightmare, wishing for him to bring it back. Wake it up. Make it look at me the way it did, so I can feel that strength again, that rage that pushed me to be what I always strove to be. Maybe then I would know the answer without having to brainstorm to get to it.

But—

If I need to be faced with dragons to be brave, to get that rush back, then maybe the answer is still the same as its always been—just with an added incentive.

The Night Fury is going to regret letting me live.

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

The crowd roars.


	2. and we slay our fears

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hiccup doesn't know how to handle going from social pariah to—not quite popular, but far from being ostracized. It's easier fighting dragons than it is understanding people.
> 
> So that's what she does.

The sudden shift in the village’s attitude towards me after the incident with the Nightmare is jarring. Each interaction is unbearably awkward and consists of the most menial greetings and questions because no one’s ever bothered to learn a thing about me, or ever wanted to, before last night. Worse still, they don’t ever seem to expect what actually comes with forcing a conversation with me—eye-contact and meaningless pleasantries.

While the adults are weird, the kids are . . . weirder. It’s like suddenly they want to include me, like me knocking that Nightmare out formed a bridge for them to cross over whatever separated us before. Snotlout’s basically gone back to his bullheaded self with a side of caution when it comes to messing with me; his comments aren’t quite so mean but they’re still just as stupid. The twins now gush over my battle scars with an ease I wish I had. Fishlegs is basically the same as before, although hesitant, knowing he shouldn’t have treated me in any other way regardless. He’s always been the softest out of our generation, aside from myself, so I don’t blame him.

And Astrid—

I jump like a startled hare, dropping the buckler I’m fiddling with inside of Gobber’s shop when metal clangs on the counter.

Astrid just dropped her axe onto the fresh wood.

“Oh! A-Astrid, hi! Hi, uh, Astrid, what did you. . . ?” For Odin’s sake, you’d think I’d be capable of managing a proper sentence after staring death in the eye without pissing myself. Clearly, that’s impossible when I’m faced with my crush. I brush my bangs over the side of my face anxiously as I avoid looking at the other girl.

Astrid thankfully doesn’t comment on my stammering. “Axe sharpened.”

“Right, of course, no problem. . . Um, I’ll just take that—” Professionalism has me heed her request even while the hormones in me scream to flee. I carefully cradle the axe like a priceless artefact—it’s certainly nearly as old judging by the worn blades.

“Did you see it?”

I swallow nervously, edging back as she steps closer to the counter, drawing her axe closer to me in reflex. “S-see what?”

“The Night Fury.”

I flinch.

“No,” I say, slowly. “No, I didn’t.” I take that as a sign to drop into the stool before the grindstone, eager to cut the conversation off.

“We saw it hit the forge again. Someone even swore they saw its shadow drop down. You’re saying you didn’t see anything? Nothing at all?”

I duck my head, shaking it as I hear her come into the shop without even the courtesy of asking, noise in my blind spot. I fidget at her proximity, sensing her disbelief. “. . . I didn’t get a good look. It was too hard to see. Sorry.”

I don’t tell her that its eyes were a lighter green than mine. I don’t know why I don’t, but I also don’t see why it would be important. They don’t use color in the Book of Dragons.

“Huh.”

A pause. The grindstone starts up and I dutifully let the tool scrape the axe’s worn edges into the fine line that marks the difference between life and death. It doesn’t take long. “Here,” I say, standing and focusing on the clutter strewn on the floor.

Gobber really needs to stop leaving everything here and there.

She takes it and her hand almost touches mine. I retract mine as soon as she has it firmly in her grasp.

I turn to continue working on re-strapping the shield—

Faintly, I hear, “You don’t have to hide, y’know.”

I can’t help it—I glance up. Before I can realize my error and correct it she’s already pinned my sole eye with her twin blues. “What?”

She hesitates, clearing her throat, before gesturing vaguely to her face. I get the idea immediately. “You don’t have to . . . hide it,” she reiterates, shifting on her feet like she’s itching to run. Or kick.

“Oh.” I brush my bangs down self-consciously. ”Not quite sure I believe you, there.”

“You calling me a liar?” I wince, but she doesn’t seem to be angry; her tone is light—not quite teasing, but definitely not angry.

She steps forward again. I’m inclined to believe she has no concept of personal space, so used to everything moving out of her way. Myself, I don’t have any more room to back up. “To a Viking, scars are stories to tell, trophies to bear. You shouldn’t feel like you have to hide.”

_Did she really just say that?_

I bore a hole into the floor.

“When have I ever been a Viking?” I demand bitterly. Astrid almost flinches at the venom in my voice. “After years of trying to get people to see me they only pay attention after I should have died. Yeah, that makes me a Viking, doesn’t it?”

“Hiccup, that’s not—” Astrid starts, but falls quiet.

Maybe if I looked up, I would have seen the guilt drawing over her face.

But I don’t. I don’t take notice, so my bitterness is left to embed its toxic roots deeper into me without reprieve.

How could she have said that to me, really? In what world is _Hiccup_ Horrendous Haddock III a Viking? One with scars, and those scars followed by epic tales of survival in the face of dragons?

_Not this one._

“You’re having me on, aren’t you?”

Astrid recoils. “What? No, I’m not.”

I set my jaw, rolling my eyes. “I thought the jokes would stop at least for a little while. Guess I was wrong.”

“Who said I was joking?” A crease develops between Astrid’s brows as she frowns at me. 

I laugh dryly. “Well, you can’t be serious!”

Before I can help it, something heady swells in my chest. Familiar yet foreign. A distant sense of heat, like an underwater geyser erupting, rolls through me. I’m angry again. No amount of my head telling it isn’t a good idea to go off on my crush can stop the acidic burning in my heart ready to be unleashed in verbal vitriol.

“I mean, come on, Astrid. Why _wouldn’t_ I hide it? I mean, who wants to hear the story about how Hiccup the Useless was minding her own _business_ when the Night Fury decided to roast her face? Who wants to brag about this,” I stab a finger at the hidden side of my face, “when most can’t even look at me without getting this expression on their face, like they’ve just found Gobber’s missing socks?”

I take a breath. My entire body is poised to roar, almost, my shoulders drawn up almost to my ears. I let them drop with a sigh instead. “. . . No, because see, I’m pretty sure there were a couple of people who wished it had actually finished the job instead. At least then they wouldn’t have to look at me.”

After a brief lapse, my words sink into the both of us, and it hits me then that I might have said too much.

I can’t bear to look up. Oh, Thor, just why did I go off like that? I didn’t mean to. I definitely didn’t mean to say that last part, especially to Astrid. Nobody needs to know how affected I am by all of this, not when they never even cared before.

And if she decides to tell the Chief, I can only imagine what he’ll say—something along the lines of “they don’t really mean it” and “don’t take it to heart, you need tougher skin to be a chief.”

“Is that really what you think?” Astrid purses her lips, blues flicking down before going back up.

“I mean, yeah. Why wouldn’t I?”

No reply comes. She probably can’t come up with anything to argue otherwise, not that I’m surprised.

Weariness bogs me down all of a sudden. I don’t understand why I’m so drained each time that overwhelming rage eventually leaves me. The onset of it is intoxicating, I never feel more confident than when I’m too angry to be afraid but when the rush passes it’s like dropping from a sugar rush. I shake my head and reach down to pick up the previously dropped buckler. “Why are you here, Astrid?”

Uncertainty crosses Astrid’s face, like she isn’t sure of the answer herself. “. . . I wanted to talk?” she says slowly.

Now, if a month before someone told me that _the_ Astrid Hofferson wanted to talk to sad ‘ol me, I would have had both a heart attack and the wisdom to tell them to go see Gothi for head trauma. But a month ago was before I got near half my face melted off, hence my skepticism. Just so, I point out, “None of you wanted to talk to me before. Why now? If it’s because you feel sorry for me, you can save it. I don’t need it.”

“That’s not it, I—” Here, Astrid seems to be struggling for words. “I wanted to. . .”

I wait. Astrid doesn’t finish. “Wanted to what, Astrid?” I push, frowning at her.

“Right, okay,” The words she forces out next sound almost physically painful in their awkward delivery. “I guess just wanted to say that I’m glad you didn’t die.”

I look at her funny. For some reason, the way she said that is hilarious to me. She looks at me in annoyance when I start snickering. “You _guess?_ Really touching, thanks. I’m relieved to know my life means something to you.”

“Shut up, you know I didn’t mean it like that,” she huffs, rolling her eyes hard at my sarcasm. “And I wasn’t done. I wanted to say I’m also surprised—and impressed—that you didn’t die. And that you took down that Nightmare. So. You know. You’re not as hopeless as I used to think.”

I don’t know how take it. Both moved and offended, I twist my mouth wryly. “Thanks— _I guess_. Hope that made you feel better.”

“Watch it or I’ll take it back. That’s as close to a compliment as you’re getting from me. And if you try to tell someone I said that? No one will ever believe you. Odin knows it was hard enough for me to admit it.” Astrid warns, but there’s a hint of a smirk as she does so.

Just then, my teenage brain kicks in when I have to tell myself to not linger on the way her lips curve, reminding me that I’m alone, with my crush, and actually talking to her. There’s no bravery now, and I fidget. An uncomfortable silence ensues where we stare at each other, two people in the same village who’ve never quite held a proper conversation before today.

_Stupid, stop staring!_

“Well. I think that about does it for awkward talks.” Astrid glances off to the side. “. . . Guess I’ll see you around.”

“Oh, uh, yeah, for sure. What with getting ready for the next raid and all that.”

“Right. Try not to attract any trouble this next time around,” Astrid says, only half-joking as she starts to leave.

I blink owlishly after her. “If you think at any point that that is actually possible then you have more optimism than my dad does about finding the nest.”

Astrid winces with a startled laugh as she exits the shop. “Ouch.”

I watch her depart.

_I made her laugh?_

* * *

Dragon training.

To be honest, despite how badly I wanted to be allowed in, I never anticipated it actually happening. It’s an overcast morning when I leave my house, the sky heavy with dark blankets of clouds. Gobber jokingly claims he always had faith in me when I walk into the arena early to avoid being stared at. No one else has shown up yet, thankfully, leaving me to slowly gear up for this new experience.

There’s a smattering of weapon and shield stands pushed against the gray walls, a few field fortifications put up for the purpose of taking cover, and, of course, the barred wooden doors hiding our future fire-breathing practice targets. I can hear them rouse at Gobber’s voice, irritated hisses and rumbles as they slither along the stone flooring.

“Are you ready for this, lass?” Gobber asks while dragging a shield away from the wall, placing it close to the entrance.

“Honestly? I have no clue,” I reply, fiddling with my bangs and ensuring my hood is secured over my head. “But I’m not afraid.”

“Good to know,” he grins, clapping his hand on my shoulder. “I’m gonna start y’all off small, work our way up to the real nasties, so if you were afraid now, I’d hate to see what you’d be by the end of it.”

“Dead, probably.”

“Probably.”

“Hey, good morning, guys.”

We turn. Fishlegs wobbles in, half-asleep and wiping crust from his eyes. Close behind him is Astrid, hair a little mussed from the early hour as though she half-heartedly braided it. Guess they met along the way.

“Oh, good,” Gobber says. “Now we’re just waiting for the twins and Snotlout. Any bets on who gets here first?”

“Uhh. . .” Fishlegs shrugs weakly. “By my estimate, both are going to be late and have a fifty percent chance to be later than the other. The other fifty percent is all three of them showing up at the same time.”

Astrid looks to me, ignoring the conversation. Her pale blues are a little foggy from just waking up. “You’re here early,” she notes with surprise, a raspy quality to her voice that makes my chest tingle.

I shrug, ignoring the funny swoop my stomach does at her talking to me. “Figured an early start was best.”

She hums, which turns into a yawn, too tired to say anything else. I wince when her jaw pops from the force of it.

As it turns out, Ruffnut shows up in the nick of time, bright-eyed sidling up next to Astrid and snickering to herself.

“Uh, where’s Tuffnut?” Fishlegs asks nervously.

Ruffnut gives him a crooked grin. “He’s a little tied up at the moment.”

“Oh, no,” Astrid rolls her eyes. “Don’t tell us. . .”

“I won’t,” Ruffnut preens, folding her arms. “But I can’t promise that you all won’t hear it from the meathead.”

It takes nearly twenty minutes for their next classmate to show up, which is Tuffnut, and boy, do we hear it. He storms in with his hair frizzy as can be, tied into uneven braids that are tangled together, some looking purposefully knotted. Each breath is almost carefully measured as he nears Ruffnut, gritting out, “You tied me . . . to the _bedpost_. By my hair. My hair! Do you know how long that took to get out of? Not to mention these braids! How can you think to call yourself a Viking with such a terrible technique?!”

“That’s why I’m practicing!” Ruffnut cackles, avoiding Tuffnut’s attempt to shove her.

They devolve into rough-housing, and Astrid, Fishlegs, and I step back to give them a wide berth, glancing at each other in resignation. There’s never a day that goes by where the two go without fighting.

“In that case, I’m going to practice putting my fist in your face!”

“I think you should practice improving your aim first, that was terrible!”

“Oh, shut up, muttonhead!”

“Milkdrinker!”

“Hag—”

“Can you two take anything serious?” Astrid finally snaps. “We’ve got actual work to do here, to, you know, help _protect_ our people? Stop messing around.”

Ruffnut and Tuffnut lift their heads from where they were scrapping together on the ground, both poised to continue wailing on each other. “She started it,” Tuffnut redirects, tugging forcefully at his hands tangled in Ruff’s hair.

“Ouch! No—” Ruffnut winces at another pull, “you—started it—” After yet another tug, Ruffnut just straight up socks him, which results in his hand being freed, “—by stealing my mutton last night!”

“I’m a man! We eat more!”

“A man? You don’t even have any chest hairs, not to mention pubes!”

Tuffnut voice cracks as he howls, raring to go again. “Hey! That’s _private!_ No one else needs to know a man’s business!”

Before they can continue, Snotlout marks his arrival with a loud holler. “Gobber, so sorry I’m late, I was saving the best for last, you know?”

He winks at Astrid, who isn’t even paying attention, too focused on watching Gobber hobble up to us.

“Pshh, more like catching up on some much-needed beauty sleep,” Tuff mutters while disentangling from his sister. Once they’re on their feet, he nudges her hard with a smirk. “Though it didn’t make much of a difference.”

Ruffnut snickers, and I fight back a smile.

“Well—” Gobber starts.

Snotlout scowls at Tuff, puffing out his chest. “Hey, what was that? You talking smack?”

“Hey, quiet now. Save the horseplay for after class,” Gobber scolds, jutting out his hook to gesture at the two and glowering. “Now, now that we’re _finally_ all here, it’s time to begin yer first day at dragon training! Before we begin, who can tell me what’s the most important thing a Viking should always remember to have?”

“Muscles?” Snotlout interjects.

“No.”

“Intimate knowledge of every dragon known to man?” Fishlegs follows up with.

“Not . . . quite.”

“A handy supply of weapons?” I rejoin dryly, referencing my incident with the Nightmare.

Gobber shakes his head, huffing, “Funny, Hiccup, but no.”

Astrid solves it flatly. “A shield.”

“Bingo!” Gobber waves his finger at Astrid. “A shield. Now, why would you need a shield, can anyone answer me that?”

“So we don’t end up looking like our dear pal Hiccup over here?” Tuffnut offers up. Ruffnut elbows him in the gut with a scowl as I flinch. “Ow, what was that for?”

Everyone but me is looking at him in disapproval. I’m too busy staring at the ground.

“What? Too soon?” Tuffnut wonders.

Gobber’s face is twisted angrily, eyes a storm cloud. “You better watch yer words there, laddie, or you’ll find yerself putting out fires by the bucket instead of the sword so long as I have a say innit. You think yer funny? Try laughing from _her_ end.”

Tuffnut looks at me then, the way I hide my face, and frowns when he can’t catch my eye. After a moment, he comes to the realization he went too far with his jesting. He must be so used to picking on me that he doesn’t stop to think about the damage it actually does to me. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to actually hit a nerve.”

“. . . Hmph. Well. Anyways, today you’ll be dealing with a Gronckle. It’s lazy, slower than most, but tough as they come. Can anyone tell me how many shots it has?”

“Uh . . . four?” Ruffnut guesses.

“Pretty sure it’s three,” Snotlout joins in.

Fishlegs raises his hand. “Six!”

Gobber snaps his fingers. “Correct. This where your shield comes most in handy. You get shot? You’re _dead_.”

 _Except for me_ , I pipe in mentally, resisting the urge to press my hand to my face.

“Now, taking a hit isn’t all your shield is good for. Go grab a shield, then pick a weapon—doesn’t matter what kind—and get ready to bang on it. Your first hands-on lesson begins today.”

“Wait, now?” Fishlegs asks with a quiver to his voice.

“Oh, this is gonna be so good!” Snotlout bounds over to the shields, picking one up and then a mace. With no small amount of ego, he begins to flex. “Just watch me guys! I’ll take that Gronckle down faster than you can say ‘Snotlout rocks’.”

“Whatever you say, macho man,” Ruffnut mocks. She goes over to the gnarliest looking shield I’ve seen, spiked and covered in depictions of gutted dragons—and Tuffnut tries to usurp her claim. “Hey, quit it! I have dibs!”

“Since when?!”

“Since you were born, duh!”

“Uh, I came first, stupid!”

Astrid sighs, coming to stand beside me with a simple sturdy shield. I glance at her nervously, questioning my own shield choice. I decided on one that wouldn’t slow me down too much but in doing so I surely sacrificed defense; my shield was thin, not iron-wrought but wooden. One blast and it’d be toast, literally. Hopefully the dragon would only get one shot at me before we took it down. “They never know when to give it a rest.”

I snort, readjusting the grip I have on my short spear to give me something to focus on other than how close she was. “Really? I couldn’t tell.”

“Are you always so sarcastic?”

I shrug. “Stick around and you might find out,” I reply with a sudden braveness that I immediately regret. By Thor, did I sound like I was coming onto her?

But Astrid studies me appraisingly instead of agreeing with my thoughts. “Maybe if you keep impressing me, I will.”

My brows shoot up. “Is that a challenge, my lady?”

“I don’t know, is it?” she returns with the same dryness I spoke with. Then she juts out her bottom lip, lids narrowing in a glare. “And don’t call me lady.”

Before I can respond, Gobber calls for our attention. He’s standing by one of the doors, hand on the latch.

“This is it, lads! Get ready!”

“Oh, we’re starting?” Snotlout queries.

Gobber opens the gate. The Gronckle bursts out, immediately diving down to chew up rocks with its impressive bite. As its jaws clamp onto the stones and its teeth break them apart to be swallowed, the back of its throat begins to glow, visible between chomps.

“Watch out!” someone calls—almost as a unit, we dive and roll out of the way as the Gronckle releases molten lava in a seriously deadly projectile. My shield thuds when it hits the ground but I don’t lose it despite how inexperienced I am with the maneuvering.

“Five shots,” Gobber calls nonchalantly.

I get to my feet as the Gronckle whirls around, wings beating as quick as a hummingbird’s, the flapping audible like a buzz in my ear. It’s bright sunflower eyes swivel and blink sluggishly, as sleep-deprived as we are, and twice as cranky. My heart drops when it locks onto me, jaw unhinging and revealing many, many teeth longer than my fingers and thick enough to wrap my hands around like butcher knives.

I’m beginning to rethink this whole dragon training schtick—this is more like a cruel gladiator fight, man pitted against beast in this arena.

The Gronckle’s throat begins to burn again, the acid in its stomach melting down the rocks it ate at a rapid pace. I take the opportunity while it’s still turning to start banging on my shield. Its pupils grow thin at the noise, squashed nose horn twitching and its head shaking furiously as though to rid itself of the clamoring.

Snotlout gives a war cry, running with his mace to strike it. Sadly for him (and his ego), the Gronckle whirling about in a fit results in him being plowed over by its hard, bulb-like tail, shield and weapon thrown as he lands on his back. “. . . Ouchie,” he grunts.

“Snotlout, out.”

“W-what? Come on, Gobber!”

“Nope. Strike one and you’re out. In a real fight, that would’ve gotten you killed,” Gobber states.

Whilst Snotlout sulks, the rest of us are skirting around the Gronckle, looking for an opening.

“I’m going in,” Tuffnut says, taking a step forward.

“No, I am,” Ruffnut opposes, shoving him.

Opposite of the them, Astrid and I look at each other with matching frowns. The twins spiral into another shoving match. In their lapse of attention, the noise on their side of the arena ceases.

I try to warn them, “Hey! Hey, you guys! Watch—”

The Gronckle blasts them, the lava shot thankfully hitting Tuff’s shield and knocking him over, splatters scattering around them in a goopy mess. The twins hiss at the glancing wounds, Ruffnut hopping around to avoid the blackening puddles of lava. His shield’s melted.

“Four shots left. Tuffnut, you’re out.”

“What?! But—!”

“Lose your shield, lose your life. Now git back.”

“. . . Fine.”

Ruffnut snickers after him. “Ha, ha, loser—”

The Gronckle smacks into her, bowling her over and taking her shield to chew on.

“What was that?” Tuffnut asks smugly when she’s forced to stand beside him.

Ruffnut scowls at him.

Gobber watches the remaining trainees closely. “Fishlegs, what are you doing?”

Fishlegs is doing his best to stay behind the Gronckle, banging on his shield while never approaching. “Uh, surviving? I calculate my chances of living being at least seventy-three percent so long as it doesn’t face me.”

“That’s not a hundred percent! You know what’ll make it a hundred percent?”

“Running away?” Fishlegs asks while side-stepping again. Hiccup and Astrid avoid a shot from the Gronckle.

“No, killing it will! You’re not going to last like that! In a real fight there’s more dragons, there’s more danger, and there’s plenty of more chances to die. You can’t just hope every dragon doesn’t see you!”

“But what do I do?!”

Gobber raises a brow. “Have you tried hitting it?”

Fishlegs looks like he wants to do anything but. But he raises his hammer from his shield, swings at the Gronckle’s side—

And misses.

“Fishlegs. . .” Gobber sighs.

The Gronckle notices the attempt, and flies backwards. It bumps into him and knocks him down, before completely dropping as though to crush him. Fishlegs wheezes as the Gronckle drops just its tail on him.

“Oh—Gronckle—you weigh—so _much_ ,” Fishlegs strains out, eyes bulging and cheeks reddening.

“Fishlegs, out,” Gobber states, going over to relieve Fishlegs of his burden. The Gronckle growls at him, gears up to shoot—Gobber hooks it, tugging its mouth away so the shot goes astray. “Two shots left.”

He shoves it back towards Astrid and I with bash on the head. It growls angrily, eyes settling on me as though I’m to blame for its misfortune.

In reality, I’m the unlucky one.

“Oh, my turn?” I ask dryly.

The Gronckle rushes at me.

“My turn,” I answer myself uneasily, jumping away, angling my spear in such a way that it doesn’t impede or run the risk of impaling me. The Gronckle zooms past as I roll. When I stand, it’s flitting back like it half isn’t sure it wants to stay in the air.

Astrid circles it still, I see. Her eyes have gone from a clear blue to steel. She’s a dagger in the dark (or rather an axe) waiting for an opening.

I decide to give her one.

“Hey, dunghead!” The Gronckle’s eyes narrow and it opens its mouth, revealing every crooked tooth lining its gums. “Hungry?”

I avoid the shot.

I bang the shaft of my spear against my shield, approaching slowly. The loud clanging messes with the Gronckle’s poor flight even more. It folds its batlike ears back in discomfort. I’m close enough now that if I stopped, if I just extended my spear, I’d hit it.

So I stop banging on my shield, and shove me spear forward. My measly arm strength means the thrust doesn’t amount to much, but it does scratch the warty hide of the Gronckle’s face, beading with red blood.

It looks at me, pupils thinning, as though just now realizing it can be hurt.

It looks afraid.

I grin at it when it backs up. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Its ears perk, pivot backward—Astrid cleaves a mark into its side before it can react to her presence. It roars and flies sideways, unsteady from the pain.

“Teamwork!” Gobber cheers. “Now that’s what I like to see! It’s been a while since I’ve seen someone actually manage to land a hit on a dragon their first day.”

Astrid and I trade matching expressions of pride.

The Gronckle hovers, twisting its overlarge head frantically like a dog, looking for an escape. A steady trail of blood follows it like paint on the stone. It backs up into the door that it barged out of, looking for all the world like it wanted to trade its brighter, bigger, deadlier cage for the small one in the dark, where it was safe. Its yellow eyes look ready to bear tears, pleading for us to spare it.

But dragons don’t cry, and Vikings don’t spare dragons.

We approach it in unison.

Its body vibrates, mouth puffing as we corner it. I’m assuming it’s going for me.

Astrid does too.

The shot hits her shield, which she bares just in time. With a startled cry she’s thrown backwards. “Astrid!”

“Astrid, out.”

Those words hit me hard. It means I’m the only one left. The one who’s lasted the longest. But my eyes dart to Astrid, as she’s drug away by Gobber in a shell-shocked state. Her gaze find mine and I can’t tell what emotion twists them into that dark blue color.

It shot her because it knew her to be the bigger threat.

Knew that alone, it could take me.

Gobber calls out to me, seeing me pause. “Hiccup . . . are you good to keep going? Would you like to call it quits for today?”

_No._

I ignore him.

_I won’t let it._

I growl, furious at again being perceived to be the weak link. The Gronckle jerks at the sound. “If you think you’re safe now, you’re wrong.”

It twists its head at me almost searchingly. I bare my teeth. A stare-off commences, in which the Gronckle finds the confidence to move from its position against the wall.

The arena belongs to us alone. The background noise drains away like water into a ditch, the whispers of my peers and mentor being silenced by sheer focus.

Then the Gronckle rumbles, jaw unhinging for what I know to be the last time.

One shield, one shot.

I throw my shield.

The Gronckle’s eyes widen as the shield blocks the shot, shattering into pieces that distract it from the fact I’ve rushed forward, spear poised. With my body in motion, I actually have more momentum that the last time I attacked, and with it the driving force of my thrust increases.

Just so, the spearhead buries into the Gronckle’s shoulder.

It seems to happen so slow, the reaction.

It roars into my face. The others cry out my name, fearing an attack while I’m vulnerable, but I hear it for what it is—a wounded cry, a plea to stop, a scream for help.

I dig it in deeper, forcing the Gronckle to the ground with pain alone. “No one’s saving you,” I told it quietly, too low for the others to hear. “No one saved my mom.”

I twist the spear one final time, leaning closer to the whimpering Gronckle as Gobber calls it. “And no one saved me.”

I’m a dagger that kills dragons. I’m a thorn that fells giants.

And I save myself.


	3. the nightmares of briar rose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not everyone is taking Hiccup's sudden increase in skill and reputation well. Hiccup struggles with her anger while her dreams fail to provide a much needed escape from reality.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo, the snow was terrible. Finding a new place to live because the plumbing was completely destroyed (it was shoddy work anyways but we were attempting to get it fixed before all of this lmao), might be getting a different/extra job. 
> 
> Fun, it is not. Time-consuming? Why yes, yes it is. 
> 
> Hope you still enjoy this unbeta'd mess!

Gobber pulled me away from the Gronckle when it became clear I wasn’t letting up. I went willingly, albeit reluctantly, because I understood the need to keep it alive for future classes.

That doesn’t mean I wasn’t tempted to end the pitiful thing prematurely.

Now I’m in the Great Hall, my ears being chattered off by the other trainees, save for Astrid and Snotlout. Each are in awe of Astrid and I’s clever maneuvering during the combat training (in hindsight it was pretty simple, but typical Vikings, as I’ve previously stated, aren’t endeared to any other method aside from hit-it-until-it-stops-moving). I’m a little lost as to how to speak to any of them, especially outside of class, and Astrid’s quiet but distinct presence beside me doesn’t help my tongue remember how to form words.

“You really showed it,” Ruffnut crows, leaning across the table with glee, giving her features a vulpine curve. “I haven’t seen a dragon bleed up close before. Blood, everywhere!”

Her twin nods empathetically. “It was a _wesome_.”

Snotlout interjects loudly as everyone’s attention focuses on Astrid and I. “I mean, yeah, that’s cool and all, but if it hadn’t caught me off-guard I would have lopped its head off. You guys know that, right?”

“Lopped its head off with what?” Tuffnut scoffs at Snotlout’s frankly sad pitch to recover face from his failing. “In case you forgot, you had a hammer, not an axe.”

“Well—see—what I meant was—I would have bashed its head so hard it would have come straight off!”

“That doesn’t sound physically possible,” Fighlegs hesitantly begins, nipping at the lamb-cop on his plate. “The best you could do is probably turn its head to mush after hitting it so much.”

“Yeah. what he said,” Tuffnut goads, thumbing his nose at Snotlout. Ruffnut cackles. Myself, I’m trying not to laugh, still hesitant that I won’t get hurt for doing so, especially when it’s at Snotlout’s expense.

My cousin, for his part, looks quite put-out by the lack of faith. Snotlout folds his arms and pouts. “Oh, shut up, know-it-all, no one asked you.”

Fishlegs looks down at his lamb, biting his lip anxiously.

“Face it, you’re just mad you didn’t do half as good as Hiccup and I.” Astrid finally says from beside me, coming to Fishlegs’ defense. Her firm voice allows me some modicum of relief; her silence had worried me ( _she’s mad at me,_ my heart woefully informs me, _mad at me for doing better than her_ , my brain replies rebelliously).

Astrid leans closer, bumping her defined bicep against my fishbone thin arms. I swallow nervously at the contact as I glance at her. We’re the same age—how could she already have such nice muscles when I have none? It isn’t fair how I’ve just got the body of a burnt twig when she walked around looking like a veritable Viking goddess.

“Isn’t that right, Hiccup?” she asks me, drawing me from my rueful (flustered) thoughts. She’s focusing on my eye and not the space where one used to be.

Slowly, with the tips of my ears beginning to burn at her attention, I nod.

Astrid frees me from her gaze to pin Snotlout with a cocky smirk. “See? Even Hiccup knows.”

Snotlout gapes at her. I absently frown at the phrasing while my fingers pluck at the tail of my braid, waiting for the explosion when he looks at me. Surprisingly, he seems to hold back the urge to strangle me now that Astrid’s in my corner.

“Traitor,” Snotlout spits out; the jest in it seems forced. “You’re supposed to be my blood, not hers.”

My expression must be a sight because Ruffnut renews her laughter with gusto. The idea that Snotlout has any claim over me, even familial, makes me vaguely ill and it’s obviously showing on my face. I can’t help but deadpan, “Snotlout, look at Ruff and Tuff and you’ll see how much blood is worth.”

There’s surprised tittering at my dry remark when Snotlout’s brows shoot up. He looks to the twins who leer back, Tuff winking. Snotlout cringes before turning back and stuffing his face to avoid further conversation.

He should be glad I didn’t mention our history instead—a far better example of what sharing blood is worth, since he carelessly drew mine time and time again. But I don’t want to sour my celebratory mood despite my own misgivings for his turnabout attitude towards me. There’s no point in reminding everyone of the misery Snotlout’s put me through just for a bright moment of satisfaction followed by awkward silence, not to mention what the twins have done. Even Astrid and Fishlegs, though bystanders, were complicit in my previous treatment by never speaking against the others.

What’s the point of saying anything?

On that note, sitting at the table with all of them levels me with the mental image of a black sheep grazing among wolves who’d just eaten. They’re not hungry right now, but who knows when they’ll turn on me. I tell myself to just enjoy this while it lasts, though I’m not stupid enough to think anyone here actually likes me.

And the reminder is coming up soon.

“Seriously, thought, I gotta know: where have you been hiding all that dragon slaying skill ‘til now?” Ruffnut asks in a conspiratorial whisper that’s not nearly quiet enough. “Because you definitely didn’t seem to have it before.”

Everyone looks at me, ears primed, even though Astrid seems to be the most subtle about it by keeping it at a glance before refocusing on eating. Snotlout, in particular, is almost glaring, probably hoping his stare can drill a hole into my head so he can dig out the answers for himself. They all want to know how someone like me, who they thought would amount to nothing, knocked out a dragon and speared another.

But I’m not sure if even I know the answer. I twirl the spoon in my bowl of porridge, considering. I had half-given up on ever fighting dragons when the Night Fury burned half my face off, until the Nightmare just—made me angry. And then with the Gronckle assuming Astrid was the bigger threat. But was being overcome with Viking rage really a good enough excuse to explain away my sudden deadliness?

“I dunno,” I decide, shrugging, “guess I just got tired of being underestimated.”

No one really seems satisfied with that answer.

“What, so you’re saying no one trained you?” Tuffnut presses, brow furrowing in disbelief.

I give him a dry look. “Come on, Tuffnut, don’t tell me you actually think anyone cared enough to waste their time on me. No one wanted to train me when they didn’t think I’d last two seconds outside of the forge.”

“Okay, you have a point there.” Tuffnut concedes, not quite apologetically. “But not even your dad?”

“Nope,” I reply suddenly.

“That’s harsh,” Ruffnut offers. She kicks up her boots, a chunk of dirt dislodging and crumbling on the table as she leans her back on a disgruntled Snotlout. Tuffnut lets it go, them, but Snotlout doesn’t seem quite as ready to let the topic rest.

“No, I can’t accept that. There’s no way,” he says, thumping his hand on the table, “that you could have managed all of that without _something_. Come on, tell us the truth, Hiccup. Who’s training you on the side? _Someone_ must have taken pity on you.”

His tone . . . I don’t know what about it that does it, but it gets my hackles rising.

“You can’t stand the idea of me being better than you at anything, can you?” I ask pointedly, the illusion of calm fluctuating in my voice, giving cracks in my tone giving rise to a heated volume. “What are you going to do this time? There’s no pictures for you to tear up. Nothing for you to break. And I don’t think you want to try and pull your usual on me around so many people. What are you going to do?”

Snotlout’s eyes narrow. “Don’t test me, nerd. Some shiny new scars aren’t going to make me feel sorry for you. I can still break you as easy as I did a few months ago.”

More cracks in my facade. Something peeking through, cold-blooded and hungry for blood. Breathe.

It feels like fire.

“Hey!” someone says, but it’s hard to tell who when my sense of hearing narrows down to just Snotlout, whose expression is a facsimile of a grin that, when accompanied by wide, angry eyes and a scathing tone, becomes more of mockery of a smile than anything else.

“No, Astrid, don’t ‘hey’ me. Think about it! Just a bit ago Hiccup couldn’t even handle a sword without poking herself. You’re trying to tell me she just, what, got fed up and decided ‘oh, let me go beat up a dragon’ and did it? She’s making all of us who actually train for this look bad! I mean, come on, just a few weeks ago she was still called Hiccup the Useless! Just a few weeks ago none of you wanted to even be around her? Don’t tell me you all forgot that?”

It gets quiet.

Everyone, save for Snotlout and Astrid, look away. I can’t tell Astrid’s face beside me, too busy staring at Snotlout blankly.

Then, in the silence, I grab my water, downing it in one go in an effort to douse the wildfire spreading through my ribs. Snotlout blinks, expression abruptly dropping into something that edges on discomfort but not quite as I calmly— _forcefully_ —put the mug down. His eyes flicker down at the abrupt noise breaking the lapse that had fallen over us, before back to me.

I hold my breath, count to three, then exhale. I’m still seething. “Thanks for the reminder, _cousin_ , but I promise you I didn’t need it. I’ve never forgotten what you’ve all done. But, it’s nice to know that sons do take after their fathers, while daughters don’t.”

Snotlout chokes at the implication. A million emotions cross his face, but before it can settle on just one the twins grab him, Ruffnut clapping a hand over his mouth to stop him from saying anything else.

I can’t tell if it’s a good or bad thing for Snotlout that Gobber isn’t here. On one hand, if he was, I can say for certain that Snotlout would be writhing like a fish once Gobber was done with him—but then I’d also be in trouble for my admittedly personal attack on Snotlout. On the other—

 _Snotlout isn’t a dragon_ , I remind myself, standing to the sound of gasps. I shake off the hand Astrid tries to place on my arm. _Calm down_ , I tell myself, as I fight to step away.

Snotlout’s eyes glare at me from over Ruffnut’s hand.

Blood is rushing into my ears, making the calls of my name distant and my body thrum with sudden energy, but—

_Snotlout isn’t a dragon._

He isn’t an outlet for me anger. I can’t bury a spear in his gut and call it a day. I can’t crack open his skull just because I’m mad, though maybe proper Vikings would. That’s how Vikings solve things, right?

With violence.

I walk past the table to head to the exit of the Great Hall. It feels like there’s fire in my throat as I clamp my mouth shut.

I don’t let myself say, _Think of what I did to the dragons, Snotlout. Think of what I did when they made me mad._

I don’t say, _You’re part of the problem, you’re_ _underestimating_ _me_ , or, _You really think I can’t hurt you?_

Because I can. With a surety I don’t know the origins of, I know I can hurt him.

And my hands shake, my fingernails digging in like hooks into my palms, when I choose not to. I know I’d enjoy it in the way I’m not supposed to, and I don’t want to compromise who I am just because I’m mad.

 _Save it for the dragons,_ I chide myself. _Save it for something worthy of killing._

Pushing the large, heavy doors open, I walk out into a great downpour, thunder muting the sound of the doors slamming shut behind me. I’m almost disappointed—heavy rain means no raid, and no raid means I don’t have anything living to vent my anger on. Even dragons are smart enough to realize rain makes it harder to keep things on fire.

Maybe I should take a step back. I used to not think so violently, and in no world should I wish for something to befall my village just to selfishly take care of my frustrations. What did I use to do when I was mad? I remember, I’d draw landscapes, sketch out more blueprints to try and catch—

The memory, the flash of blue-white-black, an inversion of normal dragon fire, overtakes my vision in time with Thor’s fury striking the sea with split-second blinding judgement in the distance.

I flinch, but instead of being scorched I’m just soaked.

It takes me a minute to process. Eventually shaking my head and scowling, I stubbornly blink the raindrops from my lashes. Despite the chill, I still feel that phantom burn underneath my skin, making me lips curl and my face wrinkle in a way that pulls at the scar tissue.

Drenched, cold, and still furious, I feel like a storm all on my own as I make my way home along the muddy paths. I stride up the steps, yank open the door, and have to take a second to remember that the Chief departed on another hunt for the nest when I question why the fire isn’t burning in the pit.

 _Of course, it’s not like he would stay to hear about my rare accomplishment now that I’m well enough to handle dragon training,_ I think mutinously. _Guess he’s so used to me disappointing him he can’t bother to stick around after the one time I make him proud, too afraid it’s just a one-off. Typical Chief Stoick right there._

I stomp my way up the stairs to my room, fighting back the stupid urge to cry, and plop face-first into my bed after kicking off my boots. I have to resist the urge to scratch at the burn scars. Some areas are still flaking with scabs, and it hurts, but I haven’t got any salve left. High of the adrenaline from class today, I didn’t even think to go to Gothi’s to restock, which just makes me more miserable.

Wriggling around, I discard my clothing until I’m left in my undergarments. Everything irritates my damaged skin now, the coarseness of my clothes especially. I let out a frustrated yet relieved sigh once I’m free before burying my myself into my blankets.

 _Just sleep it off,_ I urge myself, as I so often do. _Leave the misery with yesterday._

It takes a while with me stewing in the dark, picturing Snotlout in numerous states of agony, but even the worst of flames die out when not fed. I’m lulled into a troubled sleep, the rain thudding rhythmically against the roof’s shingles.

If the storm makes the perch outside my window creak when there’s a pause in the thunder, well, it’s just harder than usual.

_I’m in the sky._

Clouds extend in every direction below me, great and luminous like endless ocean froth. Above me a band of stars form a crescent river, glittering, which by its current I coast along. And ahead of me, the moon glows brightly, distantly observing everything like the eye of an owl.

Even under the moon’s watchful gaze, I feel free. I’ve no shackles of responsibility, no social norms to heed, soaring through the clouds against gravity itself.

Yet, I am alone.

_How do I know that?_

Suddenly, something feels off. I don’t get the chance to gain my bearings as I realize I am not what I’m meant to be. Far off, I hear it; a flutter in my ear, a croon, a warning.

It’s _Her_ call.

_Who?_

It doesn’t matter. We must answer.

I bank. I am the shadow of a star falling. I breach the abyssal clouds, falling for so long that I fear I will never break free—but a larger part of me is not afraid, knows the skies and the clouds by heart.

Soon, that courageous yet resigned part of me is rewarded. I burst from the clouds, and the isle is before me, seen from a bird’s eye view.

Berk.

_It’s my home. . .?_

No. I don’t feel home. Have I ever felt home?

. . . Once, maybe. I can’t remember.

_Who are you? Who—what—what am I?_

As if in answer, I glance up.

Unseen before now, shadows lighter than myself depart form the clouds. I hear them split the wind with their limbs, loud and unpracticed in stealth.

_Those are dragons—dragons everywhere!_

My kin— _enemies_ —surround me.

The uncertain part of me, in equal measures both frightened and furious, nearly has me balk at the sight. The great spined head of a bright blue Deadly Nadder cocks itself at me when it draws level with my own— _what the Hel am I, this has to be a dream_ —and croons in question.

I respond with a short folded-lipped growl.

_I . . . I can understand you, but—no—no, don’t!_

The shadows fall in unison.

The rush is unlike any other, a seamless mass of scales and horns and claws descending all at once.

We are a swarm.

They hear us before they see us. Grunts and yowls, burly echoes of rage as we set about our task. I watch from above, waiting as I circle our hunting grounds.

 _Stop, stop! What are you doing?! That’s_ our _food!_

This is survival. We have no choice.

Then, the alpha of the fleshy things, redhaired and loud, commands the stone-thrower to be fired. A command I’ve learned by heart, and a command I know to undermine when possible.

A whistle begins as I prepare—

_No—no—no, this can’t be—I’m not—_

“ _Night Fury!_ Get down!”

I blast the weapon to splinters, its ammo reduced to rubble.

_. . . This can’t be happening._

I circle again, blotting out the stars though I’m so embraced by the pitch of night that I am never noticed against the winking lights.

We have no choice, I remind that trembling part of me. We must.

_Why? Why?! What makes this okay?!_

I don’t answer—I see then the weapon-maker leaving his nest. A nest, I’ve noticed in previous raids, that supplies the angry fleshlings their long-claws and talons and makeshift tails, and the large scales they adorn on their arms.

_No. Please._

I wait, pausing as I let the gas inside me build—

But the scrawny thing that typically accompanies the wooden-limbed fleshling’s entrance into battle does not follow.

_This . . . is this that night?_

A few seconds more, just to be sure. Perhaps the scrawny thing _is_ inside, but struggling with one of those big clumsy weapons.

_Stop. STOP._

It has been long enough. I push aside any sentiment I have for the fleshy hatchling that always falls behind the rest of its kin, and breathe. The whistle reaches its highest pitch.

_Oh, Gods—_

A shot like lightning hollows out the inside of the weapons nest.

A scream resounds, _it is mine,_ as I roar— _shriek in_ _pain_ —in reply, and—

* * *

I fall back into my pillows as though seizing.

I’m on fire, pain like a phantom licking over my scars with a tongue of flame. When I breathe it’s like I can’t get enough air, like I’m choking on smoke, acrid and harsh and dark as the Night Fury when the sun’s not out. My frenzied gaze searches the room as I cough, clawing at my throat and the burns there—and I catch two huge pale-green ovals reflecting like mirrors from outside my window.

Before I can look too closely, a flash of lightning has them blink away into the night.

Still, I feel it in my bones, in my body ravaged by fire—

The Night Fury is watching me.


End file.
